Let’s Talk About Sex

(Post title appropriated from Salt’N’Pepa)

Once again, I’m about to do a blog post without any real research or tracking back to relevant information. I am a bad scientist, one of the many reasons I didn’t finish the doctorate I started many moons ago. So, we’re about to set off on a many thousand word essay with the advance warning that this is my opinion (and deluded reasoning) only. Here we go.

What’s it all about?

The starting point for this is really a recent post on Cracked.com [5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained To Hate Women: External Link] and some of its responses. I think the thing that bothered me about the original article is that the behaviour, the hatred, was eventually passed off and excused by the author’s words. He started off with good intentions – and may have intended to lampoon the issue and got caught in something that can best be described as a gender difference. Other people’s responses cover the range of reaction best and if you Google for them, you’ll find them.

(Or, if you leave comments with links, I’ll modify the post to put a list of them here.)

This blog post is essentially my reasoning out of why this has all come up (yet again, as this is argument probably as old as the human race). There’s also a fair chance that reasoning these things out will help me with my world building (or, more precisely, my characterisation) so I felt the need to actually write it all out and put it in a logical structure.

Sex Drive(s)

Without doing any scientific research but with trying to fit in with the society I find myself in and having watched a few small mammals interact in my time, I can come up with four “reasons” for having sex. The human element is really an extrapolation as we tend to finish the deal in private and I have yet to wander around asking people about their sex life. (Nor do I intend to.)

1. Procreation
2. Domination
3. Bonding
4. Entertainment

While some of these drives can conflict, none of them are mutually exclusive and most interactions are probably built on a combination of them.

We Don’t Mind Doin’ It For The Kids

(Section title appropriated from the Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue song “Kids”)

The title of this section could just as easily have been “Birds do it, bees do it”. It all comes down to the biological imperative – you know, the old “I’m male, you’re female, how about we go make more of us”. In order for there to continue to be human beings, human beings need to have sex. So, yeah, your parents had sex. At least once. We are not the only species that has this issue because this is simple biology.

We are one of a select few species that are not tied to the females’ oestrus cycles. This puts us in the same group as, amongst other things, rabbits. As a result, though the odds of getting pregnant vary slightly throughout a woman’s menstrual cycle, we can have sex at any time (this will come up again later). A further result is that we have significant sexual differentiation – in comparison to rabbits. We have obvious visual cues over which biological sex is which. This is not just the gender dimorphism as discussed in other posts (i.e. primarily differences in sizes and physical strength, and whether it’s a valid assessment) but gender dimorphism in the sense of which reproductive organs we have and difference in the way our bodies work. These differences displays the female physical maturity because our lack of oestrus cycle, and our poor sense of smell, hides it.

So, this drive is the instinctive search for a suitable mate: the person with the most-compatible-but-not-too-closely-related combination of genes. This is the realm of pheromones, lust, love at first sight and animal attraction. While romanticised, there is rarely straight-forward social acceptance of this and things are rarely ever this simple.

• Aftermath – The result of having sex to reproduce is having children (generally). A woman has little choice but to be the mother – although some women do walk away from their children, it’s proportionally rare – but a man can decide to go off and play the game again or stay and help with the result. Or both, depending on the social or family set-up.
• Lack of Aftermath – Not everyone does have children. There are numerous reasons for infertility or difficulty conceiving or miscarriage. It’s beyond the scope of the post to go into this but contraceptive allows us to skip to this.
• Society – As well as the mother / father issue above, this is a selfish approach because it doesn’t take into account extended families, use of resources, or existing sexual relationships.
• Gender Identity and Sexuality – Not all sexual interaction are biological male and biological female. Just because sex isn’t that binary doesn’t mean there isn’t lust / love / attraction involved. I’m not going to get into possible whys and wherefores of homosexual behaviour, not identifying with the body you’re in or whether these things are right or wrong. For anyone who says they’re not natural, however, I issue a challenge to prove that Ancient Greeks were synthesised by scientists using test-tubes. Or just go and observe any grouping of social animals.

In short, we can probably reduce this drive to brain versus body. The body, and the genetic material it contains, has a desire to reproduce itself. Both men and women are driven to engage in sex. It results in some major disparities. For example, even in situations when the brain knows sex isn’t a good idea (i.e. rape), a woman’s body will start to respond – if only to protect itself from too much damage in the form of micro tears in the skin or to take advantage of the opportunity to fulfil one of its biological functions. This will come up again later (no pun intended).

The mileage we get out of “simple biology” as a reason varies depending on the time and place. I understand it’s a key part of most Abrahamic religions, and strongly upheld by the Roman Catholic Church, that the primary driver for sex should be reproduction – and that anything that hinders this possibility (contraception, masturbation) is a sin. The control measure that they place on sex is by insisting it should be as part of a marriage. It’s debatable how successful either command actually is.

Anyway, the problem with describing the biological imperative as necessary, natural and right is that we are human beings. While we are an animal species, there are proportionally very few humans who are comfortable with the idea of being “reduced” to an animal. We all somehow consider ourselves better and yet we dismiss a whole lot of our own animal behaviour as “human nature”. When inequality exists in society, this drive is used as an excuse to apply controls otherwise applied to animals. For instance…

The marriage was used to ensure that the father can be identified within a given level of doubt (“Momma’s baby, Poppa’s maybe”) and therefore ensure that property is passed along to the “correct” individual. Therefore the concepts of legal parentage and marriage mean that at some point head and heart (or genitals, pick the organ you think would make the decision) separate in order to secure things other than just a pregnancy. This is not to say looking for a good partner and a secure relationship is not a good thing – and this will also come up again later.

In defining a legitimate versus illegitimate offspring, we can also get to a stage where we consider things like “good breeding” and eugenics. In some cases, this is just breeding for first born males and suitable carriers of a family name. In others, in can be something as offensive to the modern mind as having sex with slaves to improve the stock (and, presumably, for personal entertainment).

If the news from the States is anything to go by, there is a rebound against the Twentieth Century contraceptive revolution – which allowed a higher proportion of women to be individuals first and breeding stock second by avoiding the Aftermath for Lack of Aftermath something like 97 percent of the time – towards refusal of contraceptives and anti-abortion laws. The first will reduce women’s only form of birth control to abstinence (or homosexuality, but this comes from the same “they” who are rabidly averse to male homosexuality and probably don’t believe women can have fun with each other). In a long-term relationship, this will cause problems if a couple are not physically, emotionally or financially capable of raising children – or if they hadn’t wanted to. “They” have also not said what this means for their young men who will no doubt continue to be encouraged to sow their wild oats, victims of rape or the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

The second legal issue insists that a woman’s life is secondary to that of any children (hypothetical or pre-birth) she bears. If nothing else, I suggest looking up “ectopic pregnancy” before you start arguing that all abortions are wrong. Like anything else, it’s not a binary / black-or-white / either-or situation. Again, “they” have not said what they intend to do about women who may die bearing a dangerous pregnancy to term leaving a child in need of care, mothers having to cope with the trauma carrying a dead baby to term, or pregnancies where both parties die. Or how about the women who cannot physically, emotionally or financially cope with the child? While I agree getting pregnant on purpose in that situation is not clever, I seriously doubt the majority of women in question did so.

I’m Nobody’s Bitch

If you watch animals together, you’ll have noticed sex outside of the oestrus cycle – usually dogs dry-humping someone’s leg or each other. It comes down to dominance – and as publicly displayed as possible. It’s not even gender (or biological sex) specific in that a more dominant bitch will mount a less dominant dog or bitch. The circumstances in which this happens differ, though, in that bitches tend to be more dominant in the home (“the den”) and dogs tend to be more dominant outside (“out hunting”). If you look up bonobos, you’ll see some similar stories.

How does this relate to humans? Well, we’re typically a lot more private about sex than most animals but the dominance issue is clear. The act of sex is wrapped up in the idea of being dominated (which can be sexy, but only if it’s with someone you want to be dominated by), about invasion and submission. No prizes for guessing which biological sex gets which role, seeing as aggression is linked to testosterone levels.

It’s all about hierarchy and assuming a binary gender system makes life simpler: male and not-male. Although it still leaves men to jostle amongst themselves for rank – and the not-males to do so, too, no doubt. In discussions with others (and mentioned before), the move from male to not-male wasn’t necessarily being biologically female but about being shown to be less than a man. In other words, being penetrated. Ancient Greeks didn’t mind a bit of male-on-male action but the man who let a penis near his arsehole or his mouth was a woman. Language use in medieval “viking” work suggests that the correct end for man-to-man fighting was to imply that the loser had been anally penetrated – whether it happened or not can’t be proven. And while the Medieval and Renaissance crime of “sodomy” covers a lot of socially unacceptable acts, such as paedophilia and bestiality, the typical assumption is that it involved being “unmanly”.

As for dominance being public in Western society, it’s all still in the language of how we discuss sex in public. Swear words like “fuck” relate to a) sex and b) being the aggressor. “Fuck you” doesn’t mean “I think you’re worth having sex with”, it means “I can take you if I want” – and we know it. It’s casually degrading and we should acknowledge that even if we don’t change it. Further, it’s accepted for men to talk about sex in terms of “taking” and “having” – without considering the extremes of Lads’ Mags and the recent study that showed their narrative was little different to, and possibly worse than, rapists’ rationalisation.

For that matter, rape itself is rarely about attraction (biology), although that might cause the initial spark for the aggressor. It usually comes down to the aggressor taking (there it is again) the other person because they can. It’s not just men who are guilty of this and rapists of whatever gender usually come back to the same defence: the other party wanted it really. This could be due to imposing their own view of the world on events (i.e. I want it and you are subordinate therefore you also want it), entitlement (I’ve bought dinner therefore you owe me), miscuing (we had a good time / we’ve kissed / you’ve invited me home for coffee / you’re obviously aroused therefore it’s the obvious thing to do) or discipline (pushing at the boundaries of what the aggressor considered good and therefore untouchable behaviour). All of these disregard the person being raped and their right to make a choice.

It’s also possible to list the five “issues” raised by the cracked article under dominance, which actually makes the whole article even more unfortunate:

1. We Were Told That Society Owed Us a Hot Girl – My will was over-ridden by someone else’s (in this case an attractive woman).
2. We’re Trained from Birth to See You as Decoration – You’re not supposed to have a mind of your own because you should be submissive.
3. We Think You’re Conspiring With Our Boners to Ruin Us – My will was over-ridden by my biology, with added It’s your fault because things didn’t work out the way I wanted.
4. We Feel Like Manhood Was Stolen from Us at Some Point – I’m supposed to be in charge.
5. We Feel Powerless – I said I‘m supposed to be in charge.

While they may all actually be a valid way to feel (after all, anyone can only feel what they feel) they are not valid expressions of said emotion because they don’t take into account other people. If nothing else, it’s whining and sulking about how unfair life is. There are valid points buried in there about expectations but the apparent complaint was not that it may have been unfair of society to have built up those expectations at the cost of someone else’s desires, rather that it was unfair for society not to fulfil those expectations. At best, the attitude can be described as naive and childish. What makes it upsetting is that this is an adult talking, who has surely already learnt that life doesn’t always go the way you want it to.

The problem is, it’s very difficult to even things out and make expectations, if not actual partners, equal. The main division is still the disparity between the sexes (as displayed in the Cracked article). Society still looks down on women being sexually dominant – and possibly even active. They are neither supposed to turn men down, nor sleep with more than one lover. And most of this relates to the biology – the possibility of getting pregnant because it’s apparently the woman’s fault for getting pregnant. In a longer term relationship, it’s common for the woman to be described as “wearing the pants” if she’s seen to be the dominant character – and it’s not necessarily a bad thing for the woman. Yet it’s also common for the man in the same relationship to be derided for being “under the thumb”.

There’s Nobody I’d Rather Be With

I will assume that everyone is familiar with the concepts of families, close friends, and life partners. With luck, these are the people you choose to go through life with. This is not necessarily the same as someone you chose to be the biological parent of your children. By the same token, any successful long-term relationship is going to have a measure of this, alluded to in my earlier comment about marriage. A lot of political and arranged marriages are about finding someone who a) brings some social value to the relationship and the offspring and / or b) will be a suitable life partner rather than just a short term sexual fling. When the studies and reports come out about women being more open to bisexuality than men, I tend to assume it comes under this driver in combination with the next sex drive, entertainment.

This is the more assumed feminine drive for sex because it’s about sharing – and it’s just one of the things that can be shared if two people agree to spend the majority of their time together. It can be the result of “growing to love someone” (if you spend a lot of time with someone, and you get on, and have compatible sexualities, it’s likely to happen) or simply a case of “friends with benefits”. In either case, it’s showing that you’ve got to a stage where you trust that person (if only for entertainment purposes, see below) and that you want to share with them.

It would be tempting to say that this is a more evolved drive than the simple need for reproduction or to prove oneself better than another. It would, however, be very very wrong. There are plenty of examples of animals spending long periods of time together after the standard mating season – particularly the social animals – and sharing sex is also part of their bonding. Most animal relationships touted as gay probably come under this heading – in that there are signs of a long-term commitment, sharing the load of everyday life. It’s arguable, though, whether terms like “homosexuality” really apply to a living creature that doesn’t appear to care about gender or biological sex.

What makes this drive particularly interesting is that it can be used to relate sexuality to the idea that it takes more than two genders to raise a child. In this case, “gender” doesn’t just mean male, female or intersexed – or even how the individual identifies with the basic three descriptors – it also reflects role and age relative to the children in their care. In non-sexual terms, this could mean grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles. In sexual terms, this explains why polyamory (assuming at least three people in consenting sexual relationships with each other) can work and work well. With healthy relationships – and the associated bonding, naturally – there is a sharing of workloads, affection and attention. Agreeing the ground rules must be pretty difficult and time consuming, and my mind is somewhat boggled by the whole thing because I’m not sure I can cope with living with just one other person, let alone more.

I tend to assume that polygamy or polyandry isn’t be as stable, in that the multiple relationships centre on one individual. As with open relationships, there is plenty of opportunity for jealousy and dominance to make things ugly if all parties aren’t consulted over every potential change, and if there isn’t the fallback of bonding between the whole group. In the worst case scenario, we’re talking about late to middle-aged men coercing young girls into marriage – incidentally leaving their young men without wives – or, at a probably more typical level, it’s someone demanding to know who is loved most.

To be clear, I am not including relationships where not all involved parties have given informed consent. Therefore my coerced young brides mentioned in the above paragraph don’t really count as part of a healthy polygamous relationship as far as I’m concerned. Also as far as I’m concerned, a man or woman in a long term relationship who also has sex with others without their partner’s knowledge or consent is committing adultery. So, it’s fairly clear that there is going to be trouble when (uncontrolled or unfair) dominance comes into it. As dominance is effectively about social status and how the people around you see things, rather than what has been agreed within a partnership, a disparity can arise that isn’t solved by simply sharing a bed.

For example, the social perception of a man’s virility may improve if he’s known to have slept with multiple women (or at least the word “tart” is more likely to be spoken with affection). If a man is married to multiple women, the usual first comment is that one wife is bad enough – although people will then say how bad a thing it is. A woman who has had other lovers or multiple husbands is more likely to be disapproved of. The possibility that she may be passing off someone else’s children as the (prime) husband’s is likely to come up in conversation. By the same token, a man who has only one sexual partner (or no partners) may be considered less of a man while a woman who has no or only one partner is pretty much what she’s supposed to be – although having no children is generally viewed as unwomanly.

Just For Laughs

Humans are one of the few species that have sex for fun – the others being dolphins, chimpanzees, and bonabos – and there’s no getting away from the fact that sex done right is a lot of fun. (With allowance for asexuality and anxiety related issues.) Perhaps we even lost the oestrus because of the orgasm(s) – which implies that without orgasms we probably wouldn’t want sex all the time and we’d all be Vulcans (heh). It doesn’t even take full on sex to see sex as fun – otherwise the Church would not consider masturbation a sin that needed to be publicised as such.

In a society where there is a positive approach to sexuality, this breeds a virtuous circle more surely than it actually breeds the next generation. After all, good sex is rewarded with am orgasm and the desire to try it again. In a society where things are less cheerful, it’s going to be a negative cycle instead – breaking the rules or doing something wrong will still feel good (for at least one of the people involved) and thus the act rewards bad behaviour. In most circumstances, we all manage to fit somewhere in between and, without a good partnership or the confidence to say what we want, we just end up messed up.

For instance, way back in the (European) Middle Ages, it used to be assumed that a woman had to have orgasmed in order to fall pregnant. Which is one of the reasons we still have difficulty with rape – because, during the earlier era, a woman was just as likely to be prosecuted for adultery as succeed in bringing her rapist to justice. If she had borne a child, she must have enjoyed it. Add in the body’s typical physiological response to friction in the right places, and we have just a small fraction of the reasoning behind the whole “women are all asking for it” attitude.

In these days, we have things like sex addiction, which is mainly a way of describing low inhibitions and extremely frequent thoughts about sex. Oddly enough, it also seems to be mainly men who get caught “self-abusing” in places that are socially unacceptable. Do men have stronger sex drives? Maybe. Or maybe we’re looking at a number of individuals who have been so indulged that they never developed the ability to say “no” to themselves. (As I should learn to say to jars of chocolate hazelnut spread, single malt whiskeys and KFC.) It’s easy to dismiss it as anything from “boys will be boys” to “spoilt brats” to “poor boys”.

My gut feeling is that most men have been led to the conclusion that indulging their sexuality where they can avoid consequences (thanks Lads’ Mags) and override objection through coercion or force. Then, of course, they hit real life and find out it isn’t that way (cue Cracked article), and get on with life, or a very few don’t. There are plenty of men who are selfish and destructive in their relationships, just as there are plenty of women who suffer from the same flaws, without resorting to accusing all men of rape and wife-beating.

Oddly enough, women’s sexuality is difficult to get a handle on. I have no doubt there are sex addicts but I’m wary of even discussing it because it’s too easy to fall into accusing a woman of enjoying herself too much, and / or with too many people. The only models we really have are the virgin, the virtuous mother (who only had sex once for each child and probably didn’t enjoy it) and the vamp / slut (who has a lot of sex and, if she has kids, doesn’t know who the father is). There is no widespread media representation of the middle ground that the majority actually fall into.